Facebook treated voters with 'disrespect' over data collection

Facebook and others involved in the Cambridge Analytica scandal showed a "disturbing level of disrespect" for the personal data of voters, the Information Commissioner has said.

Elizabeth Denham was giving evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into fake news.

She said she was "astounded" by the amount of data held by companies such as Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, data brokers and political parties.

She also added weight to calls for Mark Zuckerberg to appear before MPs.

She stopped short of saying that he should come to the UK to answer questions posed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee's inquiry, something which has been demanded by MPs.

But she did say that, in her investigation into Facebook's role, it was "critical" that she had direct access to executives based in the social media's new Mountain View offices.

It would be "very useful" for Mr Zuckerberg to talk directly to MPs, she said.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) investigation into how the data of millions of Facebook users was harvested by an academic and shared with Cambridge Analytica was, she told MPs, "unprecedented", in terms of scale, cost and complexity.

In October, the ICO fined Facebook the maximum of £500,000, over its involvement in the controversy.